John Bowen answers Christopher Grabiec’s Truth of Nicene Creed doesn’t really matter article in the Niagara Anglican

Like all good editors, Chris Grabiec loves controversy, and, if necessary, will stir the pot himself. So, not wanting to disappoint him, I want to respond to his innocent-sounding but deliberately provocative question about the Arian controversy of the fourth century, “Who knows who was right?” [June 2008]

Let’s be clear first of all what that was all about. Arius (c.250-c.336) argued that Christ was a created being, although the most important of God’s creations. Although he was the agent of the rest of creation, Christ should certainly not be thought of as “God.” Athanasius in reply (c.296-c.373) argued the view which, historically, won the day—that Christ was in fact fully God, not created but “eternally begotten.”

What a yawn! Who cares what obscure male theologians split hairs about 1600 years ago? Athanasius’ victory is enshrined in the Nicean creed, with its mysterious phrases, saying that Jesus was “God from God, light from light, very God from very God.” As Bishop Bothwell wrote in the Niagara Anglican in May 2005, “who the heck knows what [that] really means?” And—for goodness’ sake, what does it matter whether Jesus was God? My guess is that most Anglicans have grave doubts about it. As Chris said in his editorial, issues like the ordination of women or the blessing of same sex unions seem much more “relevant” to life today.

I believe, however, that Athanasius was right and Arius was wrong, and that the church’s choice to follow Athanasius was absolutely crucial for the future. It has affected such crucial areas as how we view God, how we view human nature, and how we view salvation. Historically, it led to a new value being placed on the lives of children and (according to Rene Girard) to the idea of the hospital as a place where anybody could get help. In the long run, Athanasius’ view even plays into how we view women’s ordination and same sex blessings. If we had followed Arius, the world would be a very different place.

So, for example, if Jesus is God incarnate, he gives us insights into God that we will not find anywhere else. We can look at his compassion for the hurting and marginalized, or his impatience with religious hypocrisy, and say, “Wow! So God is like that!” Arius thought God was fundamentally unknowable, so no incarnation which could make God knowable was even possible. Athanasius, on the other hand, said (in effect), “Yes, God is beyond our knowing, and yet God has made himself known to us uniquely in the God-man Jesus.”

So here is our first challenge: is Jesus God making Godself known to us? Or do we have to remain agnostic, with your guess as to what God is like being as good as mine? You can choose agnosticism, of course, if you think the evidence supports it. But what has driven the church over the centuries, and given it joy and energy for its work, is the conviction that Jesus was (in some mysterious sense) God incarnate.

Secondly, if Jesus is God incarnate, that gives immense dignity to human beings. It means that, in spite of our folly and sin, God still thought sufficiently highly of the human race to become one of us. God loved the world that much. If Arius was right, on the other hand, God did not actually stoop to become a human being. The unknowable God simply sent another of God’s creatures to this world. Nice, but hardly the same thing.

One of Athanasius’ main arguments against Arius concerned salvation. Human beings were in such a mess, he argued, that they could not be saved by another human being, even a supernaturally created being. Only God the Creator had the power to sort us out. He would agree with Paul: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.”

Whether you buy that piece of the argument depends, of course, on how bad you think the human situation was before Christ came: did we really need “redemption from sin” (whatever those words might mean)? If not, then you don’t need an incarnation. It depends, too, on why you think Jesus came. If he came to offer us roughly the same good moral advice as other religious teachers, then—sure—he doesn’t have to be God to do that. It also depends on what you think was happening on the cross: if it was merely the sad but inevitable end to the career of a man who challenged the status quo too much, then that has nothing to do with salvation: in fact, it’s rather depressing.

So, yes, you can say it doesn’t matter who was right, Arius or Athanasius, if you like. But make no mistake about it: the implications of that shrug of the shoulders are far-reaching. If Arius was right, it means that God is unknowable. It means that human dignity and worth are nice ideas but have no foundation in reality. And it means that the best God can do for us is to offer us a fine example and good advice.

There is, of course, a group which believes passionately that Arius was right, and that Athanasius only won by a power play. They are called Jehovah’s Witnesses—very sincere and nice people, to be sure, but not following a faith known for its joyful exuberance. The reason for the difference is simple: Athanasius offers the world really good news: the Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t.

Finally, if this ancient debate really doesn’t matter, then the motion of the last General Synod that the blessing of same sex unions does not go “against core doctrine (in the creedal sense)” is really a joke in rather poor taste, and nobody should take it terribly seriously. Doctrines do not come much more “core” and “creedal” than Athanasius’ claim that Jesus was God incarnate